


Spark

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:04:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: You are both just waiting for the time when death declares that he has had enough, takes his soul and departs.</p><p>Warning(s): Underage sex & age disparity (14/21 to begin), Incest, Masturbation, elements of manipulation from younger character, mentioned marital infidelity, major (central to fic) character death.</p><p>Written for HP Rarefest 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spark

**Spark**  
  
How are you meant to say goodbye to the person who taught you what it was to love? Taught you what it was to _feel_. How to lose yourself in such pleasure that you thought you might die from the way it burned within you. A person that created such a spark between the two of you that nobody else would ever be good enough, ever be better – ever make you feel the same. How can you ever bear to allow that bond to be broken?  
  
Death does not listen to the pleas of the lovelorn. I know that now.  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  
**August, 1994**  
  
“Don't tell mum.”  
  
Charlie rolled his eyes and grinned as Ron looked down at the brand new shiny burn on his forearm. He reached back and yanked his t-shirt off over his head, sending his hair into disarray. At Ron's intake of breath he remembered that it had been a long time since he had been home and that Ron hadn't seen his latest acquisitions.  
  
“Don't tell mum about these, either,” he added as an afterthought, pulling up his swimming trunks from where they had slid perilously close to exposing his goods. He'd lost weight, or so he'd been told by their immediately scrutinising matriarch.  
  
With long nights out in the reserve providing little time to eat, and the extreme exercise and strength required daily, he wasn't particularly surprised.  
  
Ron was still staring, wide-eyed, at the huge beast that Charlie had spent several galleons and many minutes on. He didn't regret a single knut or second, and enjoyed the marvel in Ron's expression as he took in what, in Charlie's opinion, was an exquisite piece of body art.  
  
“Did it hurt?” Ron asked.  
“The burn or tattoo?”  
“Both.” Ron snorted and shook his head. “You're mental, Charlie.”  
  
Charlie turned away from him and threw himself forward into the pond without further comment. Despite the August heat, the surrounding trees had kept the water cold and he whooped loudly as the shock of it raced through his body. The coolness was no surprise, given that he had spent every summer of his life jumping into the pond from the point where he had learnt how to swim.  
  
He broke the surface gasping and shook his head like a dog, letting the water fly from his hair. Charlie was out in the middle and so stood, placing both feet in the mud at the bottom of the pond; the water came halfway up his chest. He supposed it was technically a bit big to be a pond, but it had always been a pond to them.  
  
“Coming in?” he called to Ron, gently skimming his palms across the mirror-like water by his sides. “Lovely and cool.”  
“You mean freezing.” Ron looked sceptical. “I haven't got my trunks...”  
“Maybe not. But I'm not going to shout to you all afternoon, so get in the bloody pond in your pants, Ronnie.”  
“Don't call me that,” Ron protested half-heartedly as he began to shrug out of his clothes.  
  
Charlie recognised the old t-shirt and baggy jeans which had been tightly belted in at the waist. He wouldn't have been shocked to find they'd belonged to him first of all. Ron kicked his clothes away and started towards the water, holding himself with all the awkwardness of adolescence. Charlie looked over his shoulder, pretending to be observing the trees at the back of the water.  
  
A huge splash of water caught him in the face and off guard.  
  
“You little shit,” he gasped, snorting water out of his nostrils whilst Ron laughed at him.  
“Miss me?” Ron needled, sending another splash Charlie's way.  
“I always miss you,” Charlie answered, more softly than he had intended. Ron frowned at him. “What, I can't miss my babiest brother?”  
  
Charlie bent his knees and sank into the water to chin level. He watched Ron as he followed suit.  
  
“How's school?” Charlie asked finally, when the silence had started to seem awkward. He turned onto his back and floated, closing his eyes against the sunlight dappling through the leaf canopy above.  
“It's school.”  
“Yeah but... do you still like it? Are you still good friends with everyone in your dormitory? Harry okay?”  
“As far as I know I'm still mates with everyone. Harry's having a hard time of it at his Aunt and Uncle's. I can't wait until he comes here instead.”  
“Must be hard, knowing he's so miserable whilst you're here, lazing around whenever you like.”  
“Shut up, don't make me feel any worse about it.”  
“Ron...” Charlie lifted his head to look at him. “It's not your fault that Harry doesn't have the family home that you have. And you shouldn't feel guilty for having it, either.”  
“It's not like that, I just...”  
“Want him here,” Charlie finished for him. “I get it.”  
  
Silence fell again and Charlie concentrated on the feel of the water lapping against his body and buoying him up on the surface.  
  
“You never really answered my question,” he pointed out.  
“Eh?”  
“Whether you still liked school or not.”  
“Nobody _likes_ school.”  
“I liked parts of school... Quidditch and Care of Magical Creatures and-” he cut off before he revealed entirely too much in front of his fourteen-year-old brother.  
“And what?” Ron needled, swimming closer.  
“And being a teenager,” Charlie said, hoping that his wry grin implied enough.  
  
Ron snorted and looked away. “From what I've heard what you got up to was much more than most teenagers do...”  
“I deny everything and anything that anyone may have told you.” Charlie dropped his legs and crouched in the water. “Who do I need to go and beat up?”  
“Nobody. Well nobody here, anyway. Rumours spread, that's all.”  
“What rumours?” Charlie laughed, wondering exactly what was still circulating about the school he had left five years ago.  
“Well, there's some pretty obvious graffiti about you in one of the fourth floor loos.”  
“I take utter pride in the fact that I'm not only remembered by my name in the trophy room, then.” Charlie winked at him. “And what about you, Ronald Bilius Weasley? Any romances on the horizon? Or at least, any good wanks behind your bed curtains at night?”  
  
Ron turned an unflattering shade of red and Charlie sighed.  
“Nope.”  
“What about Hermione?”  
“For Merlin's sake, no!” Ron protested, entirely too much.  
“Well what about Harry then?” Charlie didn't know why he was pushing, or why he was enjoying it, but he was.  
  
Ron's face went even darker. When no answer came Charlie found himself surprised to wonder if he had discovered something new.  
  
“Well,” he went on quickly, hoping to ease the tension. “If it is boys you like, that's not a big deal.”  
  
Ron muttered something indiscernible under his breath.  
  
“I like boys,” Charlie offered. “Well, men. But also women. Anything with a pulse really. Except animals, of course.”  
  
He was blathering on and Ron had gone very quiet and very still. Suddenly the coolness of the water was too much and Charlie shivered.  
  
“Let's go back to the house,” he suggested, starting to wade back to the grass. “We can have a game of chess or something-”  
  
He was stopped when Ron's hand, already nearly as large as his but much more delicate and thinner, grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. Ever graceful, Charlie lost his footing in the mud and fell in face-first. When he surfaced again he was choking, water was streaming from his nose and his eyes were blurry.  
  
Immediately he felt Ron's body close to his, a long, thin thigh pressing against his own thicker, muscled one. Ron's hands found his shoulders and pushed him upright and then, when they should have been removed, were not. Built like their father, Bill and Percy, Ron already met him in height and Charlie knew that, like his other slender brothers, Ron would soon surpass him.  
  
“Ron, what are you doing?” Charlie found himself shivering as droplets of water fell from his hair onto his shoulders and back.  
“I need your help,” Ron murmured, his voice so low that it woke something in the pit of Charlie's belly. “I'm having trouble...” Ron's cheeks coloured again. “I don't know how to...”  
“How to what?” Charlie frowned at him, trying to take in every millimetre of his brother's face to understand, to stop Ron from having to say out loud what was clearly embarrassing for him.  
“I don't know how to make myself... do it.”  
“Do what?”  
“For fuck's sake, Charlie!” Ron cried anxiously. “Come. Jack off. I don't know. I can't. Every time I try it doesn't... it happens when I'm asleep, but...”  
“Oh.” Charlie suddenly became very hot himself. “Oh.”  
“Yeah,” Ron muttered, moody and mortified. “And there's nobody else I can go to... they'd just laugh. And Harry...”  
“You don't know if Harry's any better at it than you are, so you thought you'd save both of you the embarrassment of asking.”  
  
Ron nodded quickly and looked down at the water.  
  
Charlie exhaled and chewed at his bottom lip, unsure of how to proceed. He was no stranger to self-love – alone in the Romanian forests at night, whilst the dragons slept and he was on watch, sometimes there was no better way to occupy himself and keep himself warm. If he had a sickle for every time he had thanked Merlin that he had been blessed with a colourful imagination, he'd be a rich man.  
  
“What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked finally, looking around the pond to ensure that they were still by themselves.  
“Show me,” Ron answered.  
“But it's different... I can wank in front of you if you like, but you're the one with the mind, the imagination... You can't see that in my head and I can't show it to you.”  
“I thought I was just touching it wrong.”  
“You're probably touching it just fine, but because your head isn't in the right place, or isn't thinking about the right things for you, it's not working as it should.”  
“Show me,” Ron repeated.  
  
Charlie froze as his littlest brother herded into his chest, pressing their bodies together in a way which was entirely inappropriate. He was suddenly aware of the thinness of his swimming trunks and the even thinner material of Ron's sodden underpants.  
  
“Touch me,” Ron whispered, directly into his ear.  
  
And like he had been magically commanded to do so, Charlie did. He palmed the front of Ron's crotch in the water, finding a reasonably sized set of tools to work with. His fingers squeezed almost involuntarily, and Ron's gasp of shock made him jump. A little whimper followed and, to Charlie's shame, he felt his own cock stir in response to the sound. It had been a while since he'd made anybody make that sultry noise. That it was his own fourteen-year-old brother was both present and absent from his mind. All he knew was Ron's immediate proximity to him, his scent, and the feel of his hardening dick under his fingers.  
  
With his pulse hammering in his ears, Charlie carefully crept inside the wet cotton, allowing his fingertips to seek out flesh through coarse pubic hair. Ron was frozen, his face a mask of anticipation and fear. When Charlie took him in hand and squeezed again, his eyes closed and his mouth fell open.  
  
“That's better,” he breathed, crowding closer. “Yeah... Charlie...”  
  
Compelled by the verbal encouragement, Charlie wrapped his free arm around Ron's back and held him close. They were face to face and the natural progression of a kiss, when it came, seemed perfect. Ron's lips were surprisingly soft, just like the skin that Charlie was massaging beneath the waterline.  
  
He let Ron kiss him, allowing him to test the power of his jaw, how far his tongue could reach into his mouth. He allowed damp arms to wrap around his neck and hold him in place. Long fingers crept into his hair and took hold. Charlie moaned into Ron's mouth. He began to slide his hand up and down Ron's shaft, taking care to be gentle but firm. The first time was not the right time for roughness.  
  
When the mewls against his lips became frequent, Charlie slowed his pace, laboriously running from tip to base and back again. At some point Ron began to rock his hips against Charlie's, automatically seeking friction.  
  
“See,” Charlie whispered, releasing Ron's cock in favour of fondling his balls. “You do know what to do...”  
“So good,” Ron breathed, tipping his head back.  
  
So in the moment, Charlie did what he would have done to any lover who had revealed their throat in such away – he bent his head and latched on, sucking and nipping at a certain point. Ron shuddered in his arms. Charlie moved back to milking him again, not detaching from his neck, and picked up the speed again.  
  
The mewls and breathless whispers told him that it was nearly all over, that Ron was nearly done and that, soon, there would be consequences to deal with. Not wanting to ruin the moment for Ron, he forced the thought away, lifting his and claiming Ron's lips again. That time it was he who mastered the kiss, bending Ron back slightly and applying pressure with his mouth. He fisted firmly with his hand and then, with a low cry and many gasps, Ron's hips stilled and he came.  
  
Charlie waited, watching with sick delight the expression on his brother's face. _Sheer bliss._ He had seen that look before and loved it, loved knowing that he had been the one to cause such delight.  
  
But this time was different, and it was a deplorable sort of delight, and he already hated himself.  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  
When someone's dying, that's what you do, isn't it? You relive the moments of your lives together which stand out the most. And love, the love you've harboured and built for all those months, days, seconds, that love is loyal like a soldier, tireless and unending and ready to march on.  
  
Except it can't, because death stands between you and your love, menacing and cruel, threatening to extinguish your spark. And what's worse is that you know he will succeed, that he will turn that spark into a raging bonfire, and it will burn until everything is incinerated and there is nothing of that spark – that love – left.  
  
You reminisce. You wonder what you could have done differently. If it could have been any better.  
  
And when you come to the realisation that you actually knew all along; that no, it was what it was and it was perfect for it; that there can be no more, and you deflate. Because it will soon be over. Mostly it already is, for there is no coming back for the shell on the bed. You are both just waiting for the time when death declares that he has had enough, takes his soul and departs.  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  
**2014**  
  
“What are you doing here, Ron?”  
“You know why I'm here.” Ron pushed past Charlie into the flat, ignoring his brother's clearly hostile body language and tone. “I couldn't leave without seeing you.”  
“Funny that, because last night you said you never wanted to see me again. Yet here you are, in my house, which I didn't invite you into.”  
  
“Charlie.” Ron knew he sounded weary and probably looked it too. He dropped down on Charlie's sofa and ignored the bouncing of his limbs as he settled into place. “Please don't make this any harder than it already is.”  
  
His brother began to pace up and down in front of the fireplace, the one which was completely out of place without a chimney stack, but was needed for the Floo. Ron had come through that Floo many times over the years, searching for either love, comfort or sex on each occasion. Somewhere along the line, they had all blurred into the same thing, and the same person – Charlie.  
  
“What do you want?” Charlie asked finally, sounding every bit as weary as Ron.  
  
The years had been good to his brother, Ron thought, who looked every bit as handsome at forty-one as he had twenty-one, all those years ago in the pond just beyond the boundary of the Burrow. That day had set in motion something Ron had never dreamt of, never thought would ever happen to him. In the following years he had come to love others, been forced to accept that love as enough, but knew it never was, and he had never stopped seeking out his lovely, kind, beautiful older brother, who had taught him how to love.  
  
“I wanted to say goodbye. Properly. Godric only knows when we'll get to come back to England and I didn't want to leave it so... so...”  
“Fucked,” Charlie finished for him succinctly.  
  
Ron nodded. “I didn't come here for sex.”  
“Makes a change,” Charlie muttered, but did stop pacing and sat down next to Ron, too close for brothers but perfect for what they had become over the course of time.  
  
Ron breathed a sigh of relief and leant against Charlie, resting his head on his shoulder. He could see the beginnings of silver hairs growing at his brother's temples, and a few that were streaking through the shaggy, wiry curls which had grown too long. He inhaled the scent he had grown to love; spice, broom polishing crème and something earthy. Charlie.  
  
“You understand why I have to go?” Ron asked quietly, reaching out and lacing their fingers together. Charlie's hands had acquired many more burns over the years, and the tattoos which crept down from his forearms and wrists encroached upon the skin there, too. They were hands which had held him, caressed him and traversed every inch of his flesh for the purpose of pleasure.  
  
 _And love._  
  
“I do.” Charlie's sigh was heavy.  
“Her dad has cancer. He's refusing to let her heal him and it's torturing her. She's my wife, Charlie. I have to be there for her, and there with her afterwards, for her and her mum.”  
“I know.”  
“And I know it's the other side of the world, but you can come over whenever you want.”  
“To watch you all over your wife?”  
  
Ron swallowed. It stung to hear Charlie talking about Hermione so bitterly, but he completely understood it. If Charlie had ever fallen in love with somebody else, had insisted on having some else to go home to, Ron would have loathed it. And when he and Hermione had made the decision to marry, to make a go of life together, he had tried to end it with his brother. To say that their time was over and that Charlie should let go and love another.  
  
It had never happened, despite repeated attempts. They always ended up back together, despite the fact that it meant continued infidelity on Ron's part. He wasn't proud of it, but Charlie was like a drug, a drug that he could not bear the withdrawals from.  
  
“And what if you decide you like it and never come back?”  
“My job is here, Charlie. I'll have to come back eventually. And I'll want to.”  
  
Charlie said nothing and stared at the fire. Ron nuzzled his cheek into Charlie's shoulder and clung onto his hand.  
  
“Do you ever regret this?” he whispered, unable to keep the question in as it reared in his mind.  
“No.”  
“Even though-”  
“ _Never_ ,” Charlie said forcefully. “At first... it felt so wrong. What we did that day in the pond.” He bitterly shook his head. “And it _was_ wrong. You were underage and I should have known better. If anyone had ever found out, I would have been arrested for child abuse and incest.”  
“I started it.”  
“It wouldn't have mattered. I should have walked away and refused, but instead I stood there and started this with you and ever since, we've been trying to put out the fire.”  
“But you don't regret it?”  
“How could I?” Charlie laughed; it didn't seem to reach either his heart or his eyes. “Do you regret it, Ron?”  
  
Ron considered his answer, feeling it was his turn to stare broodingly into the flames. “I regret hurting you. I regret that I had to take that extra step and that it hurt you so much.”  
“You regret marrying Hermione?”  
“I regret hurting you,” Ron repeated gently.  
  
He would not express regret for marrying the woman who loved him despite his faults, and who married him in spite of them too.  
  
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he went on, not really sure what he was saying. “I just...”  
  
Charlie hushed him by kissing him. Ron was surprised but not idiotic enough to resist. When they parted, it was only to rest their foreheads together.  
  
“A year at most,” Ron whispered. “I'll only be gone a year and then... when I come back... if you still want to...”  
  
Charlie looked at him with pained, tired eyes. His freckle-tanned face sported more lines than Ron remembered, but Charlie was still _so_ good looking.  
  
“And hey...” Ron smiled. “You've got your new job to keep you busy. We all know you need the dragons more than they need you. A new reserve is going to be just what you need.”  
“What I need is you,” Charlie said bluntly.  
  
Ron couldn't find a way to say that the feeling was mutual, so he didn't. “I know.”  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  
Those dragons, as it turned out, have caused the end of everything.  
  
And now he's here, and so am I, and the light is leaving him far too soon. We are wizards, privileged with our magic. Our lives can last a good twenty or so years more than any Muggle, and longer if we have the means and desire.  
  
But he's leaving us, just forty-one, with so much more left to do, so much left to give, but there is nothing that can be done.  
  
I don't know what I will do without him, this man who taught me how to feel. Who has held me as many times as my wife has held me, and loved me just as fiercely. Given me so much pleasure.  
  
I hold his hand. They say he will drift away at any moment, that I could blink and miss his passing. The thought of goodbye is so nauseating that I inhale, hold the breath, and squeeze my eyes shut. I grip his cold hand and raise it to my lips, I press a kiss there; I know that should anybody see, it will just seem to be an expression of grief at losing another brother.  
  
Nobody but he and I will know that this is my farewell, our last kiss, our last living touch.  
  
Today is our turn to burn.  
  
 _-fin-_


End file.
